Our predictions for financial technology hiring in 2010

Will banks begin to spend big bucks on technology again in 2010? What exactly will those spending priorities be, and where will the jobs be created? Here's our considered opinion.

2010 is likely to be a good year for...

Fixed income:

The fixed income divisions of investment banks have been driving profits throughout much of 2009, but technology investment has been lagging slightly. This looks set to change.

We understand that after hiring for project roles around fixed income technology, the likes of Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, HSBC and Morgan Stanley are now looking for development staff and this looks likely to continue going into 2010.

"Fixed income is going to come into its own next year, and will be a very good place to work," says one banking technology analyst.

Cloud computing:

Whether you believe that cloud computing - software, hardware, or networking as a service - is something of a gimmick, or an inevitable development going forward, the traction it gained within the financial services industry in 2009 cannot be ignored.

Barriers to growth, such as concerns over security, are being addressed by vendors and financial services firms alike, and projections from IDC suggest cloud services will comprise 25% of global tech spend growth by 2012.

Large financial firms like Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and State Street building on their existing internal clouds. Expect others to follow suit.

The project manager/business analyst hybrid:

The lines between project management and business analysis roles within investment banks is blurring, according to recruiters, and banks are increasingly demanding candidates who can combine the two.

"People who can engage with the business at a senior level, manage the strategic analysis and then oversee the implementation of the project are increasingly in demand," says Paul Bennie, director of investment banking technology headhunters Bennie MacLean. "This requires technical expertise, a good understanding of a range of asset classes and business facing skills."

And 2010 could be a bad year for...

Infrastructure specialists:

A move towards virtualisation within the financial services sector, combined with both economic and environmental pressures to cut energy emissions from vast data centres, has seen a slump in demand for traditional infrastructure architects.

"Value for is still money hugely important," says the banking IT analyst. "Low latency infrastructure is hugely energy rich and firms will try to offset that with a lot more virtualisation and energy saving internal clouds."

"There definitely could be fewer infrastructure roles next year," says Paul Elworthy, associate director in the IT in banking and financial services division of Hudson. "But the flip-side of this is that those with good knowledge of virtualisation and new techniques will find themselves in demand."

Integration roles:

All the merger activity within the financial sector towards the tail end of last year, led to a raft of work for techies with knowledge and experience around integrating banks' disparate IT systems.

While a lot of this work is ongoing, most banks appear fully stocked on technologists so new job opportunities are likely to be scarce going forward.

"For the most part, the volume of recruitment around integration work is largely complete," says Elworthy.

"In the first six months of 2009, there was a lot of hiring of integration specialists, but this has dried up of late," confirms Rory Ferguson, director of permanent recruitment at Project Partners.

One exception to this is RBS, which is continuing to focus on IT change projects.

Lavish IT spending:

On the face of it, the fact that the majority of market commentators are predicting an upswing in technology budgets within the financial sector for 2010 should be viewed as a positive.

But let's put it in some context - consultancy TowerGroup is predicting a 4% rise in IT budgets by European financial services firms by 2011, but this follows a 14% drop between 2007-2008.

Similarly, Gartner's projections of a 3% rise in overall financial services spend next year, still lags behind the highs of previous years.

Then there's the question about what exactly spending priorities are. A recent survey of banks' CIOs by Aite Group found that the vast majority of respondents (82%) were expecting their discretionary budgets to stay flat or shrink.

It's therefore questionable just how much innovation or big ticket IT projects (which would provide the bulk of the new jobs) will be rolled out in 2010.